Pasta with Shrimp, Artichokes and Feta

This is a really simple pasta recipe, with all my favorite things in it; light and right flavors for the warm weather.

Life is moving at a fast forward pace right now. From dawn to the time I crawl in to the bed, I cannot account for what I have done. While I seem to be doing a whole lot, nothing much seems to be getting done right now. Anyway, whining aside, this is a dish I would love to enjoy with some good wine and company. The recipe is an easy quick one – no rules to follow, no sauce to simmer, no time consuming prep work. Just use your favorite ingredients in whatever amount you want and do a quick stir fry.

I love using citrus zest and I have used some here, along a tiny bit of the fresh lemon juice. A lot of olive oil, feta and artichokes and you have the most flavorful meal ever.

Pasta with Shrimp, Artichokes and Feta

Ingredients: (serves 2)

8 ounces spaghetti or angel hair pasta (or any other kind of pasta you want)

4-6 tablespoons olive oil

5 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tablespoon lemon zest + some more to garnish

1 tablespoon lemon juice, divided

1 large tomato, diced or 1/4 cup sun dried tomato in oil, with a few teaspoons of the oil

1/4 cup marinated, crumbled Feta cheese, (or however much you want)

15-20 uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

5 artichoke hearts, in oil (more or less as per your needs)

red crushed pepper

salt and pepper

fresh parsley, chopped fine

Preparation:

Sprinkle salt, pepper and 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice on the shrimp and set them aside for about 15 minutes.

Cook pasta in large pot of salted boiling water with one teaspoon of oil, until tender but still firm to bite- al dente. Drain. Save some of the cooking liquid. Transfer pasta to bowl and set aside.

Add olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Add minced garlic and some crushed pepper and let the oil heat up. Saute the garlic and pepper until the garlic softens, but do not brown them – for about a minute.

Add the marinated shrimp and saute for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes and cook for a few minutes till they release the juice and softens. Add the artichoke hearts, rest of the lemon juice, and lemon zest. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook until shrimp is just cooked through and turns opaque.

Add the pasta to the pan. Toss cooked shrimp, artichoke, tomato mix with the pasta. Let the mix coat the pasta well and then switch off the heat.( If the dish feels too dry, add some of the reserved cooking liquid from boiling the pasta.) Add the marinated crumbled feta to the warm pasta and toss. Garnish with fresh parsley. Drizzle more olive oil, crushed pepper and zest if you wish.

I made this dish for my family but substituted fresh orange juice and zest for the lemon. I marinated the shrimp in the juice and added the zest to the olive oil and garlic. It was a big hit and two pounds of linguine were devoured before you could say more please.

I just saw this photo on Pinterest and followed the link to the recipe! The image is gorgeous – no wonder it was in the top 100 on Tastespotting . The dish itself is very intriguing – all the ingredients are so simple, yet I never thought of putting them all together, like feta and shrimp, for example. I have to try this!

By the way, I see that you are sharing your recipes on Tastespotting and Foodgawker, and I would like to invite you to check out our brand new site, and maybe share this post (and your other posts ). It’s also a photo based recipe sharing platform, launched only last week. But on our site there is no approval of pictures: all recipe photographs are published within minutes of submission. And, of course, the images link back to the author’s site.

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